Life beneath the sink

The other afternoon I got back from a short trip out of town and when I went in the front door I heard these squeaky little voices coming from beneath my kitchen sink. I opened the cabinet door just a crack and looked in and saw exactly what I expected — a meeting of the cockroaches who live in my apartment.

Evidently the entire colony was present because I have never before seen such a congregation of bugs. The Head Roach was addressing the membership. He had leaned back on his haunches, waving his feelers and forelegs as he spoke. He was using a box of SOS pads for a rostrum.

“. . .and so I can’t heap sufficient praise on our leadership,” the Head Roach was saying. “This has been by far the best year the colony has had since we occupied these premises. Our numbers have increased threefold, our immunization program is progressing, and the old dude we’re living with is showing signs of surrender. He hasn’t bought a new can of roach-killer in six months. Let me repeat, do not waver in your purpose. Eventually we’ll wear him down, he’ll quit fighting us, and the place will be ours.”

He cleared his throat importantly. “Now then,” Head Roach went on, “I want a report on the immunization program. J.B.? How are we fixed for supply?”

A very old roach raised his head to respond.

The tips of his feelers are almost solid white. He has been around my place a long time. In the colony he is distinguished for having developed a total immunity to the active ingredients in five leading brands of roach poison. A year ago the Head Roach put him in charge of immunization for the colony.

He speaks:

“We’ve never been in better shape, supplywise, H.R. I’ve now got on hand two full CCs of the straight stuff out of this spray can he’s currently using. We’ve never had that much available before.”

H.R. raises his feelers in surprise. “Fantastic, J.B. How did you ever get that much?”

“From his wet sponges, H.R.,” said the ancient bug. “You know his habits. He’ll come in the kitchen and get mad at us and squirt that spray can all over the drain board. Then he’ll get worried that he’s going to poison himself and he’ll wet those sponges and wipe the stuff up. Fortunately he leaves the sponges on the back of the sink. Our lab people down in the drain pipes figured a way to isolate the active ingredients trapped in the sponges. Then we simply collected and stored them.”

Head Roach was pleased. He said: “You mean you have extracted from his sponges a supply of pure phenol methyl-carbamate?”

“Right,” the old roach said. “Dichloro vinyl dimethyl phosphate, as well. I am talking straight stuff, H.R. No petroleum distillate. Do you know what this means? Hopefully, at this point in time, we’ll be able to initiate primary immunization to every juvenile in the colony. I’m optimistic that within six months we’ll have every one of our little bitty roaches eating that stuff for breakfast and asking for seconds.”

A tinny cheer went up from the audience when the old roach lowered his head and sank back into his thoughts.

“I think that about covers it,” said Head Roach from the SOS box, “unless anybody has an announcement.”

A wiry young bug in the back spoke up. “Sir, I’d like to say a couple of words about our Attack and Contaminate Force.”

“Come forward,” said Head Roach. The young bug went forward. He said, “I just want to say that we have two openings on the Attack and Contaminate Force, or the A.C.F. as most of us know it. A.C.F. is a volunteer group, and volunteers can report to me in the grease trap.

“Thank you, sir.”

Head Roach said, “Hold on, son. Why don’t you give a brief account of what A.C.F. does? Some of these newer roaches may not be fully aware of your contribution.”

The young bug returned to the SOS carton. “The A.C.F.,” he said, “is a highly trained force of young-adult roaches. What we look for in a volunteer is speed and agility and, of course, spirit. Most of us are male, but in recent times we have been accepting female applications because we’ve recognized that some girl roaches are as fast and agile as boy roaches.

“What we do, we hide in the kitchen when the person comes to fix a meal. Say he puts down a slice of bread on his butcher block, and turns to the refrigerator to get out the mayonnaise. On signal we dart out and hop on the bread and run around and around on it. We have to keep doing that until he sees us. Then we dash away and hide, most times in the dishwasher.

“He’ll think the bread is contaminated with disease organisms from our feet, and he’ll pitch it in the garbage sack where we can eat it at our leisure during the night. A significant portion of the total food supply of the colony is provided by A.C.F. activity.”

Cheers went up. Feet stomped. Antennae waved.

“For example,” the young roach said in conclusion, “last week’s pepperoni pizza banquet came to you as the result of an A.C.F. raid. I thank you.”

More cheers.

While they were distracted I thought I could wipe them out. I whipped open the cabinet door and let fly an awful fog of roach poison.

But they were too quick for me. Out of that large gathering of roaches, only a couple of them flopped over on their backs and kicked. My guess is even those two were putting on an act. Probably when I shut the door they hopped up and went laughing off into the plumbing somewhere.

Thanks Ralph….don’t you just love this story? Reminds me of Paul Gallicos(?sp?) cat doing the his work for him. Here’s a one armed greeting to y’all!
I’m now a modern man…..
with parts made in japan….
Domo arigato! I’m Mr, Roboto
Domo! Domo!

Eli, I’m assuming that you are having to limit the usage of that left arm for awhile til “the booster” gets healed in (thus the one armed note). Good to see you commenting though, don’t go wild and throw any left hooks anytime soon.

How well I remember the family of roaches that lived with us when we first lived in Houston! Your recording of their meeting under your sink is so accurate. They do scamper away to hide as quick as a wink. At night when they thought we were asleep, I happened to catch them flying around the kitchen, chasing each other! ! ! Very rarely see one here in West Texas. Now that I have read your story, I know what I’m missing out here – and I am very thankful.

The Sure-fire Guaranteed Boll Weevil Eradicator that they sold thousands of for $2.99 each over station XERF in Ciudad Acuña also works on roaches, fire ants and almost any other insect pest. When the package arrived in the mail, it contained two wooden blocks, one with the letter “A” painted on it and the other with the Letter “B”, with a sheet of instructions that read, ” 1. Place boll weevil on Block ‘A’ . 2. Strike sharply with Block ‘B’.”

I don’t know how true that is. It may just be a legend, but I’ve heard it all my life. If it ain’t true, it ought to be.

One of my mission team members was preaching in a small church in Esquintla, Guatemala when the local Alcalde (Latin American Alcaldes run the small towns) visited our service (I think his plan was to shut things down if they were not going to suit him).

A two inch long middle American cockroach flew in the open window and lit on the front of the pulpit and proceeded to buzz his wings as if to fly again. I began praying “Lord, don’t let a cockroach make a mess out of this service”. The Alcalde had marched in with a couple of bodyguards and sat down beside me (the visiting dignitary or so he thought). The Alcalde went to sleep and began snoring loudly (it wasn’t me preaching and putting someone to sleep this time, but I confess to having done so to some others).

I switched from praying about the buzzing cockroach and starting praying that the Alcalde’s snoring wouldn’t mess up the service. No more than I had voiced the silent prayer than the cockroach DID fly, right towards us and lit on the snoring Alcaldes forehead. He jumped up cursing loudly, slapped the cockroach to the floor and stomped it into oblivion.

That pretty well put an end to everything: the cockroach, the Alcalde’s visit and the service itself.

Roaches. It was the first time we visited Texas to see our daughters. We were exhausted after the long flight and the party to welcome us and finally got to bed and switched off the light. We had been awake for some thirty-six hours. We had always associated the small cockroaches of Europe with dirty conditions and had not then ever seen or heard of the flying monsters of Texas. Within a few minutes my wife screamed as the room seemed to fill with the sound of what we thought were bats whacking against the walls and rattling onto the bedclothes. The giggles from our girls waiting outside of the bedroom door to hear our reaction to what they had become accustomed in that particular house did not improve my temper. We have forgiven them since – ALMOST.

Fantastic! Sounds like my old apartment when I took in someone who needed a place to stay (and I needed rent help). I owned every kitchen item, from the knives & forks to a set of china. He’s use a pot & some utensils + a plate or two. The he left it, w/o rinsing or washing, in the sink. He’d do this until everything was dirty. Then he’d clean out whatever he needed, & it would end up back in the sink dirty. I was working a full time, 2 part time jobs + going to school (12 hrs/semister), so I ate CHEAP burgers at Prices rather than cook. I ended up washing everything & taking it home. I think that brought on starvation by the roaches. My wife would swear you wrote this about any apartment occupied by son No.1 , No2, or No.3

i guess everybody that post on here, is aware of the verse in the BIBLE where GOD ALMIGHTY said, “A SMART MAN WILL NOT ALLOW HIS MEMORIES TO TAKE PRESIDENT OVER HIS DREAMS, PLANS AND VISIONS For THE FUTURE!”*******

i am wondering when all the old past stuff will be over and done with, so we can start posting about our dreams and visions. i only have visions due to my not being old enough to have dreams. ***************

i am sure you all know that GOD once said that “MY YOUTH WILL HAVE VISIONS AND MY OLD MEN WILL HAVE DREAMS!” so i am going to leave it to you old folks to keep on with all the old stuff.

Years ago as I approached a counter top in the kitchen, I saw a 1/2 inch roach on his/her back legs kicking like crazy. Along comes a smaller roach that runs past the roach in distress. The kicker yelled(?) out at the runner that help was required to be righted. The runner comes back to kicker and pulls it over to the splashboard. Well the splashboard was a curved surface and kicker couldn’t gain any traction. Meanwhile, runner is leaving the scene and kicker calls runner back for another try. Second time didn’t work either. Runner decides to pull kicker underneath the toaster to possibly gain traction on bottom of toaster. As they were headed toward the toaster, I decided I had seen enough. Enter the flyswatter. No wonder roaches have survived millions(?) of years, they ain’t stupid.